


The Devils Child

by Leelu (orphan_account)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Albinism, Alternate Universe - Bakery, Attempt at Humor, Everyone is nice, Fluff, Hanji is eccentric, Hurt/Comfort, Just pretend that they're speaking dutch, Levi is awkward, Multi, No one speaks dutch but for some reason everyone else speaks english, No past relationships, Slow Build, Supportive bros, a lot of fluff, eren is a dork, soon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-19 00:37:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2367791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Leelu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren is a twenty two year old college drop out, who, after moving to the city of Amsterdam and into his Father's old house, finds a job at a local bakery working as a cashier, where he meets Levi, one of the chefs. Eren's unusual appearance brings him a lot of unwanted attention and a lot of unwanted hurt, but his world is turned upside down when his fellow colleague, Levi, stands up for him. With the help of Levi, Eren is shown that the world isn't as bad as he first thought it was, and that maybe, for someone like him, there's a chance at love.</p>
<p>In which Eren has Albinism, Levi is awkward, and no one understands Dutch despite living in the Netherlands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Devils Child

**Author's Note:**

> Introductory chapter introduces things. I'll try and finish this. Meh.

He didn’t have any boxes, or bags, save for the one on his back, which only contained a few of his belongings: house keys, phone, laptop, wallet and a few other essentials, excluding clothes – he wouldn’t need any, he could always go and buy some later.

He walked along the pavement, eyes fixed in front of him, watching as streets and people, trees and plants appeared in front of him, emerging out of the haze where his vision ended. It had only grown worse over the years, his sight had, and him being a wayfarer meant that travelling in general was dangerous, or more often than not, out of the question. Cycling and driving was a big ‘no-no’, for the consequences if he so happened not to see someone in front of him, would be too big. Despite him having no life at all, Eren didn’t want to waste the one he had. And so, after a rather large accident when he was fourteen, Eren was ‘prescribed’ with a blind dog. 

Eren, though, wasn’t completely blind. A guide dog would help him, but without one, he would fare quite well. His parents, on the other hand, were hearing none of it when the teen protested, and so, he met Angel. A beautiful golden retriever, whose fur was so golden it was almost white, hence the name. Eren liked to joke that she was his ‘guardian Angel’, for, after all, she followed him everywhere, and guarded him like no other. With the exception of Eren’s Father and his friends, that is.

Eren continued walking down the pavement, phone in one hand, dog leash on the other. The GPS on his phone told him that his house was not very far away, at all, and a flood of relief emanated through his body at the thought of being behind doors, closed away from the world. It was how he liked it, and how he wished he could spend every day of his life. Eren was, as one would say, different. His appearance attracted many unwanted eyes, and many unwanted stares, and many unwanted pointing – something done by children who didn’t know better, but he couldn’t blame them. Who he _could_ blame though, were the parents who told their children things about him that were not in the slightest true and in the slightest sensitive. Those assholes knew that Eren was but a yard away, within hearing range, and yet they ran their mouths like they were trying to finish a marathon.

Even now, as he walked down the overly busy road, bustling with tourists who were too busy taking selfies or photographing the houses, he received stares and points and whispers. Even though he was wearing a hat, it did nothing to hide his ghostly white skin, or the pale, milky hair, or even his grey, almost red eyes. It wasn’t his fault he was like this, it was no ones, and yet the sneers and remarks spoken in languages inconceivable to him hurt just as much as though he could understand them. He knew what they would be saying, though; “what a freak” or “he looks like a ghost”, or even “he’s the devils child”. The last one was one he heard commonly. Wherever he went, prejudice would be thrown in his face like it was a common thing, and people would talk as though it were the middle ages, and burning people at the stake for being a witch was something common, something they would _condone._

Despite the lingering stares and glares thrown his way, Eren continued walking down the street, occasionally tripping on his shoe laces or having to maneuver out of the way when Angel alerted him to there being an obstacle of some sort in his path. Glancing back down at his phone, Eren was thankful to find that he only had to turn at the top of the road and he would be but a minute away from his house. Slowly, as he raised his read, disregarding the people, out of the white haze in front of him, appeared the end of the street, and he couldn’t have been any happier. 

At the top, the albino turned onto a calmer, less busy street, which was still littered with leaves and the occasional person walking past to look at the canals. Amsterdam was a beautiful city, undeniably. Much prettier than London, where he’d lived there for two years before, finally, deciding to settle down somewhere nicer, hence, Amsterdam. After ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, Eren had been put off. He didn’t know why, he just was, but after visiting for a short period of time, he’d fallen utterly in love. Not only with the city, the food, the scenery, but the house he would be living in – his Father’s house. Eren’s Father was a Doctor, who, in his spare time, writes. Before he had met Eren’s Mother, he resided in Amsterdam and spent his time writing and working in a hospital there. The house was expensive, large, and beautiful; it had the most beautiful view of the trees and canal from all of the windows, and it was simply a gorgeous house; Eren couldn’t be more thrilled to be living there, for free, at that matter. 

Coming out of his revere, Angel stopped brusquely, and moved to the side to swerve out of the way of an oncoming cyclist, who should have been using the rather small road, or even the cyclist path. “Idiot…” Eren muttered under his breath, before pocketing his phone to look at the house numbers, when finally, his eyes settle upon the house. _His_ house. 

Walking up the small stairs to the front door, Eren unhooked the backpack from his back, and from the first compartment, he extracted a set of keys, using them to open the door. The air inside was musky, and less refreshing than that of the outside. He’d need to open the windows for a while to rid the house of the smell of dust. The first thing Angel did after being released from her leash, was bound through the hallway, and into what Eren assumed to be the living room: there was a rather nice, vintage sofa, with a matching chair, and a coffee table. On the wall was a television, which had been mounted by Eren’s father, as a ‘moving in gift’, courtesy of him taking the house off his hands. Besides that, the room was rather bare, but the dog now lying on the sofa, accentuated it, making it feel more homely. 

Leaving the dog to be lazy, for after all, she’d done a lot of work for Eren, the albino walked into the kitchen and shrugged his bag off, laying it on the counter. He sent a quick text to his Father, telling him that he’d arrived, before groggily wandering up to the cupboards, opening them in turn, in search of a cup that wasn’t dusty or cracked. Eventually, after finding one, he served himself up some water, for of course, there was no juice or tea in the house. The water was refreshing; it was soft, and much nicer than the water in London, which was hard and had such vast amounts of calcium and lime scale in it, Eren could almost see the flakes in his cup. Those days were over now, and he could now boil water without having to worry about descaling the device every other day. 

A few seconds in to downing the drink from heaven, Erens ring tone went off, the soft voice of Mindy Gledhill filling the quiet air, alerting him that someone was calling him. He swiped the screen and brought the phone up to his air, brushing some of his white hair out of the way as he did so.

“Dad?” Eren asked, placing the cup in the sink as he walked away from the kitchen to the living room, sitting down on the sofa besides Angel, who woke up and nuzzled closer to Eren, which caused him to smile. 

“Eren how’s the house? You got there without trouble? No one-“ His Father pressed, and Eren only rolled his eyes and smiled inwardly. 

“God, Dad, everything’s fine. No one caused me trouble, I’m fine, and I’m safe ‘n stuff.” Eren yawned a bit, despite it being only early in the afternoon, he was feeling the effects of sleeping on a ferry. He’d managed to stay awake for the duration of his journey to the house, but had originally planned to collapse when he got there – that, however, didn’t exactly happen.

“You sure? Mika can always come over and-“

“Dad! I’m fine, just, tired, is all. Calm down, dude, I am fine.” He reassured, but soon realized his mistake of calling his Father ‘dude’. Being the man he is, Eren’s Father wasn’t one to let his children speak with colloquial language. Despite the phantasmagoric appearance he had, Eren’s Father was a man who meant business. Some people probably thought he was a slob, considering how he often walked everywhere in pajamas, and didn’t shave for weeks on end, until someone pestered him about it. Truth is, Eren’s Father, Grisha, was neither too lazy, nor too tired to do anything about his rather dismal appearance, he just didn’t have the time. So much was true, for when he turned up to Eren’s parent-teacher evening, wearing a doctor’s suit, complete with the facial mask and gloves. Needless to say, it was another thing for the twats at school to tease him about. 

Eren could hear the visible sigh from the other side of the line as he braced himself for a small lecture that he knew would be coming. 

“Eren, please, don’t call me ‘dude’, I thought that we’d talked-“ 

“Yeah, yeah, we have. Look, Angel’s whining for food, so I’m going to go get some, yeah? Okay, love you, bye.” With that, he ended the call and rubbed his eyes to remove the building up crust, which would only hinder his vision more. While it was true that he’d lied to his Father about Angels incessant whining, it was also true that he’d need to feed Angel, and would have to go find a pet store to buy food for her. The albino groaned as he walked into the living room again, patting the retriever to wake her up. 

“Hey, girlie, we’re going to go get you some food, ‘kay?” Eren attached the leash to her and ruffled the hair behind her ear, causing her to push back against the pale hand affectionately. Eren smiled and stood up, almost forgetting his cap, before exiting the house, backpack on back, phone in pocket, leash in hand with Angel guiding his way. 

In reality, Eren didn’t know where he was going. He had a vague idea of where the city center was, but even then, it’d be a bit difficult to get there. There were, though, signs, but the Dutch wasn’t something he could read. He could speak a little bit, yeah, but just enough to barely hold a minute long conversation. No one could blame him, though – the languages that were offered in high school didn’t have much variety.

Humming to himself as he turned off his quiet road, onto a busy street, Angel continually jogging between people as she stopped at the curb, waiting for Eren to cross. After the short count down, the green man popped up, barely in Eren’s vision, and the crowd of people walked across the crossing, to the other side of the street, which was even busier. He didn’t know where there would be a pet shop in a tourist-centric place, but it didn’t matter; he could walk around and get used to the feel of the town, and maybe along the way ask someone for directions. 

He sighed as he felt Angel tugging more, as though she’d spotted something, and assuming that it was food, Eren tightened his grip on her leash, but the retriever was not giving up yet. She only bounded forward, barking a bit, until Eren lazily resolved to follow her. It was rather an odd sight, at that: an albino boy wearing a cap in the middle of the day, being dragged along a busy street by an equally pale dog, who seemed over-excited for some reason. Eren didn’t know where he was going, but trusted the dog to lead him somewhere that was both safe, and useful; he didn’t want to waste the valuable sunlight. 

After being dragged through a rather large crowd, a few of who yelled at him in Dutch, Angel stopped at a crossing and waited for the cars to pass before bounding down the high-street again, a rather tired Eren in tow. As he looked up, Eren could see the stores coming in to focus as the dog slowed down, and, eventually stopped in front of what Eren assumed to be a pet store; there were pictures of various cats and dogs on the window, and a few pet items on display. Breathing a sigh of relief, for he’d found some food for Angel, Eren walked in, the eager dog in tow. 

It was a nice and quiet shop, save for the bustling of the workers, who were placing items on the shelves and moving around. Eren moved to the section where he assumed the food was, but after eyeing a few of the packets, he found that he could not read anything. He’d have to learn Dutch; otherwise living here would be stupid. Sighing in annoyance, he walked up to the counter, where a brunet girl was eating biscuits in a rapt manner, and he couldn’t help but notice that very closely resembled that of dog treats. Shivering inside, Eren coughed a little bit, and she looked up from her packet and smiled at him, none the subtly eyeing him up, before locking eyes. Eren could see her interest.

“Kan ik je helpen?” She asked with her accent prominent as she spoke too quickly for Eren, who only just managed to pick up what she was saying. Now, he knew it meant ‘can I help you’, but he couldn’t form a response, as his mouth was opening and closing as though he were a fish out of water, which, metaphorically, he was. 

“Spreekt u Engels?” He asked, and it was one of the only phrases he knew how to say, but his lack of accent must gave given him away, because she smiled and put the packet of food under the desk.

“Yes, sorry ‘bout that.” She said, still smiling, as she wiped the crumbs away from her mouth. Even when she spoke English, she seemed fluent, and Eren wouldn’t have been able to tell that she was Dutch, had she not had that accent. “So, what can I help you with?” She wiped her hands on her green apron, and it got Eren wondering; why is it that so many pet store employees seemed to wear aprons? Why did they need them? What purpose did they serve? He’d have to Google that one tonight. Speaking of Google, he needed to buy a router, Damnit. The list of things to do was piling up and Eren could almost feel the weight of living by himself starting to drag him down. 

“Oh, uh, dog food. I can’t really read Dutch.” Eren said, shyly, balling his shirt in his hands, suddenly feeling self-conscious, before the girl let out a hearty laugh. 

“Ah, it’s fine, no worries, no worries.” She patted him on the back and smiled down at Angel, who seemed taken to the girl, Sasha, as her tag read. Sasha walked away from the two, leading them to the aisle that Eren was previously at. She looked at Angel, and then moved further down the aisle, to where the dog kibble was kept. She searched through the bags, looking for a good sized one, before handing it to Eren. “I think this should be fine.” She said, and pointed out a few things to Eren, translating them from Dutch to English. “Those are the calories, and those are the serving sizes.” She said, pointing to the side of the bag.

“Oh, thanks. Could I get two, y’know? She’s a big eater.” Eren smiled down at the dog that was wagging her tail, looking up at Eren with big brown eyes. 

Sasha took another one and handed it to Eren, before walking back to the counter, a happy skip in her walk. Placing the items on the counter, Sasha rang them up, before passing the receipt to Eren, who had paid. 

“Thanks!” Eren waved back at Sasha as he was leaving the store. She smiled and waved back, before bringing the packet of dog-food looking biscuits up, to begin eating them again. 

“Come back if you need anything!” She spoke between bites, some food falling out of her mouth to land on her previously clean apron. Eren almost cringed, but refrained from doing so as he nodded and stepped out into the afternoon. The air was beginning to grow cold, and the sky begun to cloud over – a sign that the day was ending. Now that he’d got food for Angel, he only needed some for himself before he could leave and go home. Tugging his cap down a bit more, the two began walking back the way that they had came, this time slower and less haphazardly. As they were walking, Eren found he could take time to appreciate the view around him; he had previously ran through the flower market, which he didn’t notice before, but made a mental note to visit tomorrow. Eren could always use a few flowers to brighten up the outside and inside of his home. 

But, as they were walking, Eren saw a sign come up out of the white. Squinting to read it, one word stuck in his mind as he approached the outside of the shop. ‘Inhuren’, meaning ‘hiring’. Walking into what he thought was a bakery, the bells chimed as the door opened, and the smell of pastry flooded his senses.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism and reviews welcome. ^^


End file.
